


Whatever Else Is Unsure

by wordslinging



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4690922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordslinging/pseuds/wordslinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things Illya learned from his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Else Is Unsure

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the prompt "5 things Illya's mother taught him", in which the Oedipus complex mentioned in Illya's dossier in the credits is interpreted as "admiration for how well his mom did after her husband was shipped off to Siberia coupled with protectiveness/defensiveness about her choices, sometimes taken to a violent degree because Illya".

**I.--Joy**

They are happy, before his father's fall. 

They are wealthy, in a way Illya will only appreciate when he is older and they are not wealthy anymore, but beyond that they are a family, whole and unbroken. His father, tall and strong, carries him on his shoulders, and his mother, beautiful and clever, tells him stories and teaches him songs. 

His parents play chess, a habit throughout their relationship, and Illya watches, not understanding the game yet but loving to watch the ivory horses and castles move across the board. They go on walks together through Moscow, arm in arm, while he runs ahead and his mother calls for him to stay in sight. They dance to records and the radio, spinning around the living room while Illya watches and claps.

Sometimes his mother dances with him, holding both his hands and guiding him through the steps. "Watch my feet, Illyusha," she tells him, and he does, certain in his youthful ignorance that there is nothing his clever mother cannot do, no lesson she cannot teach him. 

**II.--Survival**

When they come for his father, Illya doesn't understand why his parents don't fight. Years later, he'll realize they both fought as hard as they could, remembering overheard conversations where they looked for a way out of the reckoning his father knew was coming, talked about running, and finally just tried to prepare as well as they could. Later, he'll understand that to keep fighting once the stern, dark-suited men arrived at their door would only have made things worse for all of them. 

As a boy, he only knows that when the men come, his father doesn't struggle and his mother just watches. Finally he steps forward himself, fists clenching, determined to do _something_ if no one else will. Instantly, his mother's hand lands on his shoulder and pulls him back. 

" _No_ , Illya," she hisses, with a sternness he's rarely heard from her up to that point in his life. 

"Listen to your mother, boy," his father says as he gathers up the few possessions the men have deigned to allow him to take. He removes his watch, looks down at it for a moment, and then up at the men. "My watch," he says. "I would like my son to have it."

The watch is a fine piece of craftsmanship, and everything of value in the Kuryakin household is now up for grabs. The men exchange glances, and Illya's father, who has always been a proud man, speaks with naked desperation in his voice. "Please. It was my father's. Let me leave it with my son."

One of them nods, and Illya's father turns to him, holding out the watch. Illya takes it, folds his hand around it quickly before the men can change their minds. He wants to fling it at the wall, smash the glass face and send the workings flying, and at the same time wants to hold it close and kill anyone who ever tries to take it from him.

His father puts a hand on his head. "Take care of your mother, Illyusha," he says. "You are the man of the house now, yes?"

"Yes, Papa," Illya says, when he wants to shout _Why are you letting them do this?_

"Good boy." His father ruffles his hair, leans over him to kiss his mother, and then turns to face the men. "I am ready."

Illya tenses as the men lead his father away, ready to spring. His parents words are in his mind, but the blood roaring in his ears threatens to drown them out. His mother's hand tightens on his shoulder, and he stays still.

Afterwards--only after the men are gone--she cries and hugs him. 

"What do we do now, Mama?" Illya asks her, and she pulls back to look him in the face, still holding him by the arms.

"We do the best we can," she tells him. "We survive."

**III.--Practicality**

They live frugally after his father is taken, but they live. There is always food on the table, always a new pair of shoes when Illya outgrows his old ones yet again. They will never again have the wealth they had before his father's disgrace, but they live better than the little they were left and his mother's low-paying factory job should allow for.

Eventually, Illya connects this with the frequent visits from the men who were his father's friends. There are several of them who come often to the small apartment where the Kuryakins live now, who express their concern for Illya and his mother, who give him pocket money and tell him to call them "uncle". His mother smiles at these men, and serves them tea and cake, and tells Illya to go down to the shops or for a walk in the park, and eventually Illya understands, and he hears the names that the neighbors call his mother, and when the men smile at him and clap him on the shoulder the anger rises in him and he chokes it down for her sake. 

His mother knows how to make the best of what they have, how to mend and repair and stretch their resources as far as they can go. She teaches him all she can, how to sew, how to cook, how to fix things when they break. 

"You must always be able to take care of yourself," she tells him. "But don't be too proud to accept help from others, if they offer it in friendship."

"And if they offer it at a price?" he asks her. 

"Then decide if you're willing to pay it," she says. "There is no shame in that, if you do it on your own terms. But if you are prepared to make your way on your own, without anyone's help, then you will never be at anyone's mercy."

**IV.--Patience**

Once again, he's in trouble for fighting at school. He knows he shouldn't, but every time the words _traitor_ or _traitor's son_ fly from his schoolmates' lips, the rage boils up inside him like he's watching the men take his father away all over again. He knows it frustrates and upsets his mother, which makes him feel guilty and ashamed, which only feeds the anger.

"You must stop this, Illya," she tells him as she cleans his cuts and scrapes. "They'll throw you out of school if you don't."

"Who cares?" Illya replies sullenly. "Maybe I don't even need to go to school. I could get a job--"

"No," his mother says at once. 

"Why not? I'm strong, I can work. We could use the money--"

She seizes his chin, making him look at her. "Because you are a child, and children should be in school, not at work."

He breaks away from her, still angry. "You can't _make_ me go to school." 

"No?" She folds her arms, raising an eyebrow. "So this is how much your mother's wishes count for now?"

Illya looks down, knowing she's right, still unable to shake the anger's hold on him. After a moment, his mother sighs and touches his shoulder. 

"Come with me."

She leads him over to the table by the window, where the chess board sits. Not the fine ivory set she and his father used to play on--that one was taken, of course, leaving just this simple wooden one. 

His mother points him to a chair, then sits across from him. "If you can beat me at chess, you can leave school," she says. 

Illya scoffs at first--he knows how to play chess, and it's simple enough. Move the pieces, each according to its own rules, and capture the enemy's king. Simple.

By the end of the fifth game, he's glowering at the board. At the end of the tenth, he swings a hand out, knocking several pieces to the floor. 

"This is stupid," he grumbles. "I'm not playing anymore."

"You're giving up so easily, then?" his mother asks. "You must not want to leave school so badly."

"I _do_ ," Illya protests. "But there's no point. You're better than I am."

"And how do you think I got that way?" she asks, calmly retrieving the pieces he knocked over. "It wasn't by giving up or sulking when I lost, I can tell you that."

Illya glares at her for a long moment, during which she looks steadily back at him. 

"I play white this time," he says finally.

"To be good at chess takes patience," she explains as they start the new game. "You cannot simply charge across the board and try to win as fast as possible. You must decide the best strategy, and to do that you must take your opponent's measure. You must let him show himself to you."

They play, and she beats him, and he gets better, and she still beats him. He tries harder not to fight at school, doesn't always succeed. He looks for other places to channel the pent-up energy inside him, finds them in martial arts and other athletics, but he and his mother still play chess, in the mornings before school and the evenings after dinner, as often as they can.

When he wins a game for the first time, years later, there is no talk of him leaving school, from either of them.

**V.--How to Let Go**

At first, he balks at the idea of working for the KGB.

"Those are the same men who took my father away," he protests, sitting with his mother at their tiny kitchen table. "How am I supposed to just go to work for them?"

She arches an eyebrow at him and sips her tea. The hard years have aged her prematurely, but she is still beautiful. "And refusing to work for them will bring your father back?"

Illya looks down. "No. But--"

She puts her hand on his, pressing gently. "Illyusha. The KGB did not make your father steal. They did not make him betray men he had sworn loyalty to. He did what he did, and he paid for it. Don't sacrifice your future for him." He looks up at her, eyes wide, and she smiles sadly. "You are old enough to understand this. I loved him--I love him still--and I knew what he did and enjoyed the spoils of it. He has paid, and I have paid. You should not have to." 

Illya turns his hand over under hers. "You think I should do it, then?"

She touches his face, stroking his hair back as she did when he was small. "I think you are an extraordinary boy, and you should be where your talents can shine. That is not here; perhaps it is with them."

"What about you?" he asks. "I don't want to leave you on your own."

"I'll be fine." She squeezes his hand once, and then pulls back, letting him go. "Don't worry about me, Illyusha. I'll survive."


End file.
